


sharp edges

by elliptical



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Codependency, Humanstuck, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mild Suicidal Thoughts, Past Abuse, Running Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-15
Updated: 2016-02-15
Packaged: 2018-05-20 17:43:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6019246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elliptical/pseuds/elliptical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Dave."  Karkat won't look at you.  "We're both really messed up people."</p><p>---</p><p>Dave and Karkat run away together, with mixed results.</p>
            </blockquote>





	sharp edges

**Author's Note:**

> this is a bit of a deviation from my usual flavor of happy healthy wholesome davekat fluff. please mind the tags

"This is a mistake," Karkat mutters on cue, his temple pressed against the car window as he stares out at the passing road. He's 'voiced concerns' - otherwise known as teetered close to the edge of a nervous breakdown - at least once every fifteen minutes since you grabbed your keys.

"No, it's not," you say patiently, and lay harder into the gas pedal. He clings to the door handle as you wrench the steering wheel to the left, passing the tractor trailer in front of you.

"Watch it!" he yells.

Unsafe driving is one hundred percent the best way to distract him from his doubts. You chill in the truck's blind spot for long enough to make him sweat, then floor the pedal as the driver puts on his signal to merge left. Karkat makes a sound like his intestines are being pulled out through his ass as he's thrown back against the seat.

"I can't help it," you tell him. "I learned to drive in the middle of the city. Defensive driving? Nah, fuck it. I'm an offensive driver. Everyone is an enemy. The plebs don't know who they're dealing with. They better steer the fuck out of my way or I'm going to hit smash them out of the way like we're Mario-ing this bitch. Mario don't fuck around."

"I don't know if you noticed this while you were looking at the pretty fields and shrubs with your adrenaline-tinted shades, but we're not actually in the middle of the city right now."

"Same principles apply."

"They literally do not."

"I am pretty sure the same principles apply. I mean, we're making good time and aren't dead yet, so."

"Pull into the next rest stop. I'm driving."

"Uh, excuse you? No one else drives the Stridermobile. God. You have less driving experience than me. We're definitely going to crash."

"IF YOU DON'T PULL OVER AT THE REST STOP, I AM CALLING THE POLICE AND TURNING US BOTH IN. HELLO OFFICER, THERE'S A CAR WITH A TEXAS LICENSE PLATE THAT I'M CONCERNED ABOUT, THEY'RE DRIVING ERRATICALLY AND I'M PRETTY SURE THEY'RE CARRYING DRUG PARAPHERNALIA BECAUSE THERE'S A BROWN GUY IN THE FRONT SEAT" -

"You can't be racist at the cops about yourself, are you seri" -

"HELLO OFFICER, PLEASE APPREHEND THEM AS SOON AS POSSIBLE BECAUSE THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY A DANGER TO THEMSELVES AND OTHERS" -

"We're not even doing anything illegal!"

"YOU'RE DOING NINETY-FIVE IN A SEVENTY!"

You ease back into the middle lane and glance at his face. He's still clinging to the door handle, a little pale, and you think you might be a bit of a jackass, but he's also not about to have an emotional breakdown, so... point to you.

"Okay," you say. "Next rest stop is in twenty miles. You can drive. Don't have a panic attack."

"Eat my ENTIRE ass."

"Not my scene, dude. Shit, I thought we'd been over this. The poop in mouth concern is real. I won't even do ass to mouth for the people who pay for it. I gotta have some boundaries."

Karkat rakes his hands through his hair, a few strands coming out between his closed fingers. Bad sign. "Slow down."

You're only doing eighty now, but you coast your way down to seventy-five to appease him. "Okay."

"I'm freaking out a little."

"So I've noticed."

"No, I feel like you really haven't noticed because I thought we were past you disrespecting me and my anxiety and acting like it doesn't matter so I feel like you don't actually have any concept of how bad I feel right now or else you'd be shutting the fuck up and possibly pulling over to the shoulder because there's a very real chance that I'm going to hurl and lose my lunch all over the inside of the Stridermobile."

"You know, you could roll down the window and hurl outside and totally ruin the day of whoever's behind us."

"Dave."

"Are you really gonna throw up? 'Cause I'll pull over if you're really gonna throw up."

"I can't tell."

That's not promising, so you guide the car over to the shoulder and put your hazard lights on. Karkat opens his door almost before the car has stopped moving, stumbling onto the grass, one hand braced against the frame of the car as he hyperventilates.

You step outside and walk around to brace your hand on his back, rubbing gently. "Hey. Hey, shh, it's okay."

"I shouldn't have done this, oh god I shouldn't have done this."

"Karkat." You find his hands, squeeze them gently. "You've got your ID, right?"

A nod.

"Your insurance card and social?"

Nod.

"Your money?"

Nod.

"Crabcrab?"

He cracks a smile, and you breathe a sigh of relief. "Like I'd forget Crabcrab, you son of a bitch."

"Rose is waiting for us in New York. You can call your dad as soon as we get there, okay? We're not doing anything illegal. It's okay."

Another nod. "You need to stop speeding."

"Okay."

"I mean it, Dave. I know this feels like a road trip adventure for you but it doesn't for me."

"Okay. I hear you." You reach out for him, a question more than anything, and when he nods you wrap an arm around his waist. "I'm sorry. I was trying to get your mind off things."

"By being a huge jackass?"

"By fueling your adrenaline?"

"My adrenaline has been fueled for the next fifty years. Any other scares are going to push me hard into a premature heart attack."

"We're not doing anything illegal, though."

"Do you seriously need to be doing something illegal to get your heart rate up."

"Uh."

"Who am I kidding. Of course you do. Why do I even ask. It's not like you ever pass up an opportunity to be anything other than the pinnacle of self destructive teenage angst. Packing up and fleeing across the entire country without a word to anyone? Nothing but a normal Tuesday for Dave Strider, shining beacon of hope for all future delinquents and people who want to think that leaning over a fire escape railing with a lit cigarette makes them an artistic badass!"

"Okay, but are you done with the whole puking or almost-puking thing? Because you can keep ranting in the car."

"I intend to."

True to form, Karkat begins ranting again as soon as you've pulled back into traffic, even though you stay in the right lane and do not exceed the speed limit. "Because I mean, it's not enough to be a pair of runaways who are completely screwed if we ever decide that this was a bad idea, and it's not like I'm completely going to get disowned by my dad, and it's not like your bro is completely going to cut you off financially, and it's not like we're doing what's possibly the single stupidest thing any teenager could pull off, no, that's not enough for Dave Strider! He must continue his reputation of being 'stoic' and 'badass' and play God with the flow of traffic because, you know, who gives a fuck if we flip over when we're this close to getting out! It's not like his boyfriend happens to give a shit and be concerned that we're backsliding into last winter levels of 'Oh yeah lol I'm just super wasted and don't remember any of last night and don't recognize this part of town can you plug this street name into your GPS and -'"

"Karkat," you say.

"'- come pick me up since I've got no qualms about -'"

"Karkat. Enough."

He goes quiet and fishes around on the floor in front of him, coming up with one of the blankets you packed for the road trip. In the enclosed car, it takes an impressive amount of maneuvering to get it around his shoulders - especially considering he won't unbuckle his seat belt - but when he does, he leans against the door.

"Sorry," he says.

"I know you're scared," you say, "but you're not being fair."

"I know. I'm sorry." He closes his eyes, pulls the blanket tighter. "Fuck. I didn't think I'd freak this bad."

"I didn't either. Makes sense, though." You glance at him, then forward again, keeping your eyes on the road. "It's okay."

"What if..." He trails off, stares harder out the window.

"What if what?"

"Nothing. Never mind."

"Now I'm curious, though."

"I don't want to say it."

"Why?"

"You know those things where like... like you're afraid of a thing but then you're scared saying it will make it true, so it's better not to say anything about it or think about it at all?"

"Well, I mean. Considering we've both had our respective bisexual panics, yeah."

You reach over and pat his shoulder. It's pretty hard to comfort your boyfriend when you're going seventy miles an hour on the highway, but damned if you're not going to try. "Hey, it's okay," you add. "We planned well, right? We've got our insurance information, this car's registered in my name and I make the payments on it, we've got bank accounts our parents don't know about, we've got a place to stay. We've got family. We're not running into this blind. It's been like, what, a year? A year of planning."

"Yeah," he says, but he's still got the little brow furrow he gets when he's overthinking things and being more upset than just surface anxiety, so you pat him again.

"Hey, if you want to call your dad at the rest stop you can. It's not like I'm gonna judge."

"I'm not worried about my dad."

"Then what are you worried about?"

"I can't."

"Karkat. Karkat, hey, if it's outside the realm of guessable possibilities you gotta let me know. I swear not to laugh. Unless you're afraid a giant earthworm's gonna cleave this highway in two and swallow us up like the worst 'Divided Highway Begins' sign of all time."

He flinches.

"Oh fuck," you say. "You're afraid a giant earthworm's gonna cleave this highway in two and swallow us up like the worst 'Divided Highway Begins' sign of all time."

"Giant porcupine, actually."

"Really?"

"No."

"You sure?"

"I have more to lose than you do," he whispers.

This feels like a conversation you're going to have to get into in depth at the rest stop, when you can drag him into the back seat and pepper his face with kisses. But it's also not a conversation you can shut down now, not when he's got almost as many issues opening up as you do and he'll take any mockery or silence as a sign that he shouldn't have spoken at all.

(and you're thinking about the more tumultuous parts of your relationship, the pieces of the last three years that you'd love to carve out of the puzzle and throw into the fire because the empty spaces are prettier than the whole picture - shouting and shattered glass and half-burned cigarettes snuffed under your sneaker, messy kisses and crying and clawing and slammed doors and he grew up well-educated in punching walls to cover fear and you learned that if your own edges were broken the least you could do was return the favor by slicing up everyone around you)

"How so?" you say.

"Rose is your sister. Your mom is your mom. They have to like you. Or at least they're a hell of a lot more likely to like you than they are to like me."

"You're part of the family too, though."

"For now."

Your stomach sinks all the way into your bowels. "What?"

Karkat sits up straight as the car wobbles, your hands slipping on the steering wheel. "Oh fuck," he says. "I didn't mean that. Not like it sounded."

"Then how did you mean it?"

"Just. Why do you love me?"

"What?"

"Why do you love me?"

"You're all I've got."

"Yeah," he says, the same tone he uses when you concede that he's won an argument, but this conversation doesn't feel much like a usual debate.

"Yeah what?"

"I mean. Nothing. Nothing important."

"It feels kind of important."

"I mean, just. Uh." He fiddles with the edges of the blanket again. "If you only love me because I'm all you've got. That's not really, uh. I mean that's not really sustainable."

"You." You suddenly wish you'd had him drive when you got back in the car, because now you feel like you're the one in danger of throwing up. "Uh, unsustainable meaning we can't - are you leading up to a - I mean, are you breaking up with me?"

"No! What, no, no, no!" The momentary relief shatters when he adds, "But - but, I just, I'm just thinking. With the statistics and everything, uh. How many couples our age make it and how many don't and how many stay together but are fucking miserable. And like. If we don't make it, uh. You've still got your family. I don't. Won't."

Your fingers tighten around the steering wheel, and your breath comes shaky through your nose. "How long have you been thinking this?"

"I don't know. A while."

"And you didn't say anything?"

"I'm saying something now."

"Saying something now that it's too late to..." Your throat goes dry as the realization hits you. "You didn't say anything because you still needed a ride to New York."

"It wasn't like that, holy shit."

"Were you just gonna, uh. I mean. Were you gonna break up with me as soon as we got there, or as soon as you could afford your own apartment, or..."

"This is all coming out about as wrong as it's possible to come out, holy shit, please listen to me."

"No, no, okay, I get that this is about you and how you're feeling and it's important to listen to that but I'm a little - uh - haha, fuck, uh - I'm. Uh. I thought we were okay?"

"We are!"

"It sounds like we aren't."

"Dave..." Karkat pulls more of his hair. "You don't know a lot about relationships."

"Right, I forgot, you've seen every sappy romance movie in existence and therefore everything there is to know about The Romances and The Relationships."

Rest stop: next five miles.

"Dave." Karkat won't look at you. "We're both really messed up people."

"Yeah," you say, hating the quaver in your voice, hating the way you want to yell because that's less likely to make you cry, "but that's why we _work_ , because we get each other, we help each other out."

"Because we're really fucking codependent."

"Because we need someone in our corners!" You hit the steering wheel and Karkat flinches because there's the yelling, but even so your voice wobbles and cracks. "Who gives a fuck if it's codependent? I'd rather be codependent with you than be by myself, I don't know where I'd fucking be if you weren't - fuck, no, that sounds bad, that's not - not like 'I'm gonna hurt myself if you leave,' that's such a shitty thing to say and I wouldn't, I wouldn't, but Karkat -"

"Dave," he says. "I'm not breaking up with you."

"I know. You already said that."

"Pull over."

"The rest stop's in like two miles, it's fine, it's fine."

"Okay. I don't think I'm helping right now, so I'm gonna - I'm gonna be quiet until we pull in, okay?"

You nod and press your lips together. By the time you guide the Stridermobile into a parking space in the back of the rest stop lot, you've managed to choke down the worst of the panic, but it's frothing under the surface. You might as well be cracking the top of a pressurized soda bottle and watching the pop slowly, inexorably creep toward the surface.

When you turn the engine off, Karkat unbuckles and slides into your lap, mumbling "Shhhshhshoosh shh shh shoosh it's okay shh it's okay it's okay everything's okay," and you are the sum of your parts, the sum of every time your bro threw you across pavement and your mom called you drunk and Rose messaged you slurred and you smoked half a pack of cigarettes to steady the shaking in your hands and thought about what it would be like to tip over the fire escape's railing. You are the sum of every time Karkat climbed in your window bruised and aching and you held each other and he told you _shhhshhhshhh it's okay it's okay it's okay_ , and you break.

The bottle top pops off and everything rushes forth in a torrent and you are ugly-crying against his shoulder because you aren't good enough for him, you aren't good enough, you've never been good enough and you've got no excuses left to write in ink or blood. You try so, so hard not to hurt him and you don't know _how_ , and you cry like you did the first time Karkat saw your scars and kissed your hair and told you he loved you but for very, very different reasons.

You cry for... fifteen minutes, maybe twenty. It's hard to tell. This is far from the first time you've sobbed on Karkat and - you hope it won't be the last, but -

He runs his hands over your face and through your hair and presses little kisses over your forehead and cheeks and nose, heedless of the fact that you are an ugly snotty mess. When you finally spend the last of the Emotion Fit, you lift your head to make sure no one's watching you, and then flop back against the seat.

"Oh my god," you say. "I am so fucking sorry."

"It's okay. It's okay. I'm sorry too. This is not the way I wanted to bring up any of this."

"Were you ever going to bring it up?"

"Yeah, but. Not like this."

"Okay." You wipe your eyes, which are going to be puffy and red and sore for at least an hour. _No Officer, I wasn't smoking The Marijuanas, I was having a massive anxiety attack on my bf slash bff. No biggie._

"Okay."

"So, how were you going to bring it up?"

"Here, let's go outside."

Since you're finished with your emotional breakdown and your shades hide the worst of the evidence, you don't mind moving over to one of the picnic tables in the grassy area outside the rest stop. Karkat sits across from you, blanket still tucked around his shoulders like a cape, and plays with your hands in the middle of the table.

"I'm just really scared," he says, "that the only reason we're together is because we're messed up. And that if we stop being messed up then we'll realize we don't actually like each other and fall apart. And I - you - I don't want to lose you just as much as you don't want to lose me, so then it's this thing of like, like, am I only going to New York to stay close to you, and..."

"You're not, though. Your dad is a shithole."

"I know. But these are the kind of thoughts I'm having, okay? Feeling like - like - like I'm so glad to have you as my family and feeling like both of us need to get better for each other but feeling like I don't want to get better if that's gonna mean potentially losing you and that's not - not - that's not the kind of person I want to be, Dave."

"We're not going to fall apart, though. We've always taken care of each other."

"You love me because I'm all you have," he says. "And if that's why you love me then I want to keep being all you have and that's a fucked up way to feel, Dave, that's a really fucked up way to feel and I - I hate myself for feeling that way. And right now, with us leaving together, with us doing this, you really _are_ all I have and all I keep thinking is that if I lose you I won't have anything and that's not pressure I want on you and it's not pressure I want on me either. Because then I have to think about what I'd do without you and that... never ends well."

"Okay," you say, "but you're literally catastrophizing. Like us breaking up is the opposite of a problem that I could ever see as even like, a tiny shadow on the farthest horizon."

"Dave." He squeezes your fingers. "You're not hearing me."

"You're seeing problems where there aren't any problems."

"We're codependent as fuck. That's a problem, okay? Even if it's not a problem now then it's going to be a big fucking problem down the road. Hah, down the literal road. We're really messed up people. I just feel like - I can't see this ending in anything except disaster unless we fix it and I don't know how to fix it."

Something tugs at your thoughts, a little nagging voice that's not quite your own but close enough to count. _If he doesn't want to leave then who gives a fuck about how badly you mess up? You could fuck up to the moon and back and he'd still be there, who gives a fuck how you hurt him, consequences are dead and this is the opposite of a problem._

Okay, this might not be the opposite of a problem.

You run your tongue over your lips, formulating your thoughts, because you ramble a lot but this is one speech you can't afford to get wrong. "We're making it better already," you say. "By leaving, we're making it better. By getting the fuck out, so we're not gonna have to save each other's lives as often." He must be able to feel your hands shaking, because he squeezes them again. "And - and we're both gonna get therapists, and probably antidepressants, and we're gonna stop sucking so hard at coping, and get better hobbies, and meet people, and start new lives. And we're gonna be real people and everything's gonna be okay. Okay?"

Karkat smiles the wobbly smile he always does just before he cries. "And then you stop loving me."

"What? No."

"You love me because I'm all you've got. And when we stop sucking so hard that'll change."

"Karkat - Karkat, Karkat, no. No, oh my god, that was a knee jerk answer, the worst cop out, the terrible 'your boyfriend doesn't want to be sappy' answer, of course there's more to it than that."

He shakes his head, a few tears spilling over his bottom lashes, smile frozen on his face. "It's okay, Dave. It's okay. It's okay, really. I know I don't have much to offer, not once you get past... whatever this is. It's okay. I know. I'm not mad."

"Nonono, shh, oh my _god_. Listen, you self loathing jackass." You sort of barrel roll over the table so that you can sit next to him, because fuck standing up like a normal person. His smile becomes a little more genuine, so you take that as a positive. Parkour saves relationships, txt it.

"Look at me, look at me." You turn his face toward you, swiping his tears away with the pad of your thumb, the way he did for you in the car. "I love you for more than that, okay? More reasons than all the fucked up things we've done together and all the fucked up things we've rescued each other from. I love you for so many fucking things."

"I'm gonna be that guy."

"That guy?"

"The one who makes you list examples."

You snort and lean forward, gently thunking your forehead against his. "Like how passionate you are," you say. "How you're the most passionate person I've ever met, how you throw yourself so wholeheartedly into your interests and relationships. How deeply you love, whether it's a person or a pet or a movie, how hard you try to be a good person, how you're not afraid to stand up for other people even when you're afraid to stand up for yourself, how..."

"I think you're giving me credit where I don't actually deserve credit - "

"You're the guy making me list examples so shhhhut up and listen to them. How you give so much of yourself to other people even though you don't have to, how you trust them in ways I - I don't get how you can trust people the way you do, with everything you've been through - "

"I barely trust people - "

" - and how you want to come off as abrasive so people leave you alone but you're so fucking kind it makes my heart hurt and you're like, like, like everything I could want in my life and everything I could want to be all wrapped into one person, how could I _not_ end up codependent on you, I mean I know it's unhealthy and it sucks but you are also my favorite person and I want us to be okay, I _want us to be okay_. I love you so much. You're so good. You're so _good_ , Karkat, you're so much better than anything I've ever deserved and you don't even realize it so you settle for this shitty subpar - fuck, okay, no, we're not going to turn loving you into a self-loathing festival. You're so good. I want you to be happy. I really, really want you to be happy. I want us both to be happy."

He turns his face to the side and kisses your palm, exhaling. "I want us both to be happy too."

"We're going to get better."

"Yeah. Yeah. We're going to get better."

"But we gotta keep moving forward to get there. Behind us there's nothing but massive suckage. The road ahead is paved with good fortune and haha, I love that we're on a literal road trip because it's making these metaphors so much better."

"Okay. Okay." He nods. "Are we done talking about really heavy relationship shit now, because I think having panic attacks behind the wheel counts as unsafe driving."

"I think so. Are we good?"

"Yeah, we're good. We're good. This _might_ not have been a huge mistake."

You smile and make a sweeping gesture at the roadway. "So are we going to get back on the neatly laid path to our future, or."

"Yeah." He stands up and stretches. "Right after I take a whizz. My God I forgot how bad anxiety makes me need to pee."

Your laughter is quiet but genuine, pulled from your chest in a way that almost startles you and definitely aches. Your eyes are still swollen, puffy-red, sinuses clogged to remind you of your earlier breakdown, but you've got a road full of miles and a car full of snacks and a radio full of songs and a boyfriend who you love more than anything in the world even if you haven't quite figured out how to make the love work yet and -

Yeah. Yeah, it's okay. This wasn't a mistake.

You're going to be okay.


End file.
